There are several obstacles you must overcome in order to give yourself a fair reading of Charles Frazier’s new novel, Thirteen Moons. There is, first of all, the phenomenal success of his first novel, Cold Mountain, an international bestseller that has sold more than 4 million copies and was made into a star-studded Hollywood film. […]
Perry Deane Young
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He shoulda been Deep Throat
Damn! The 30-year-old secret of the identity of Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat” is finally revealed. It turns out it was Mark Felt, former No. 2 man at the FBI, who was giving The Washington Post all those insider stories that brought down the Nixon administration. More important to me, Deep Throat is not who […]
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Reliving a massacre
The Marion Massacre By Mike Lawing Wasteland Press, 119 pp., $12 ‘Twas in Marion, North Carolina, In a little mountain town; Six workers of the textile In cold blood were shot down. –From “The Marion Massacre” by Woody Guthrie In the early dawn of Oct. 2, 1929, the McDowell County sheriff and several deputies faced […]
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Souvenirs of torture in Vietnam
This past week found me sorting through my souvenirs from the war in Vietnam as I prepared to transfer my papers and photographs to the Southern Historical Collection of Manuscripts at UNC-Chapel Hill. There was the beautifully embroidered shoulder patch showing an upraised middle finger from a Navy support unit. There was a song I […]
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The Indy Bookshelf
Mount Mitchell & The Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America By Timothy Silver UNC Press, 352 pp., $19.95 I had only one complaint after reading Timothy Silver’s extraordinary new book, Mount Mitchell & The Black Mountains, An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America, published by UNC […]
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A cautionary tale for D.A. Jim Hardin
The introduction of homosexuality into the murder trial of novelist Michael Peterson recalls a similar trial in Hillsborough 39 years ago. The results of that trial should provide a cautionary tale to Durahm District Attorney Jim Hardin, who seems to be desperately grasping at straws in his efforts to establish a motive in the current […]
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A decision that frees us all from fear
It is a moment in history I never thought I’d live to see. With rare common sense and humanity, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled so-called “sodomy” laws unconstitutional. For the first time in American history, millions of us are no longer considered illegal in the eyes of our society and the […]
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Shu
To those of us who were lucky enough to come under his influence, James Hampton Shumaker was without question the best writer, editor, teacher and mentor who ever lived. To him, writing for a newspaper was the highest calling and he surely helped give the profession a better name than it deserved. To him, good […]